Former senator Chuck Hagel, the Obama administration’s presumed favorite for Secretary of Defense, has come under attack again. This time, it’s not because of his record on Israel, Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah—it’s because of his record on gay rights.

The Human Rights Campaign and other gay rights groups criticized Hagel on Thursday for comments he made 14 years ago about James C. Hormel, whom President Clinton had nominated to serve as ambassador to Luxembourg. Here’s what Hagel had to say back then about gay ambassadorial nominees: “They are representing America. They are representing our lifestyle, our values, our standards. And I think it is an inhibiting factor to be gay—openly, aggressively gay like Mr. Hormel—to do an effective job.”

Hagel’s remarks are troubling for obvious, entangled, reasons. First there’s the suggestion that being gay inherently contradicts American values. Then there’s the idea that some people are too gay—as in, “aggressively” so—making them too threatening to serve as representatives of their country. Finally, there’s the fact that, if Hagel is appointed Secretary of Defense, he will have to implement the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which barred openly gay people from serving in the military. In 1999, Hagel opposed repealing this law, stating that “the U.S. armed forces aren’t some social experiment.”

But today, Hagel responded to the new round of criticism by issuing a statement retracting his remarks about Hormel’s nomination: “My comments 14 years ago in 1998 were insensitive. They do not reflect my views or the totality of my public record, and I apologize to Ambassador Hormel and any LGBT Americans who may question my commitment to their civil rights. I am fully supportive of ‘open service’ and committed to LGBT military families.”

If one lives in the Jewish State, carries a state-issued ID that identifies one as “Jewish,” and keeps the customs of the Jewish people, one might be forgiven for thinking that assimilation is not much of a threat. If, however, one is to believe the election campaign of Shas, Israel’s Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party, one would be mistaken.

In a series of ads intended to send the message that voting for Shas is the only way to temper all that’s wrong with the party widely expected to win the upcoming elections—Netanyahu and Lieberman’s Likud Beitenu—Shas sets itself up as both coalition partner and savior: “Only a strong Shas will take care of the weak,” reads one ad, alongside a picture of Netanyahu. Alongside a picture of Lieberman wearing, rather startlingly, given his antipathy towards the religious parties, a black kippa, we read: “Only a strong Shas will prevent assimilation.”

The fight over the potential nomination of Chuck Hagel heated up considerably over the past couple of days. At first opposition focused on Hagel’s supposed anti-Israel inclinations. But it has become increasingly ad hominem, with particular focus on his alleged anti-Semitism. Though there’s no evidence that any of these accusations are either true or representative of Hagel’s personality, and the evidence actually suggests the opposite, it’s taken some time for Hagel’s defenders to go public—and the White House especially has been absent from the fight it picked.

That seems to be changing, at both the political and the personal level. Yesterday, a number of former ambassadors signed a statement praising Hagel for his dedication and pushing back against the personal attacks. Also yesterday White House Press Secretary Jay Carney expressed President Obama’s confidence in Hagel’s dedication to his country. It wasn’t a strong defense, but it was something.

And today a letter to the editor appears in the Omaha World Herald by a rabbi who says he personally knows Chuck Hagel over 25 years of interaction, including addresses by Hagel to the congregation. Rabbi Aryeh Azriel writes that “As a person who grew up in the State of Israel, I found a great love in Chuck’s heart for the Israeli people and their desire to live in peace and security.”

These efforts to engage with Hagel’s detractors are commendable, however late they are in coming.

It’s expected that there be a responsible public debate over who gets to occupy one of the more important Departments in the U.S. government. And there is plenty of room for disagreements over Hagel’s ideas about defense, the Middle East, the budget, and so on. It behooves us all to keep the discourse civil and policy-oriented; the issues America is facing in the next year are too great to do otherwise. And it makes us look much smaller than we really are.

Though Obama may hope to pivot to Asia, the Middle East keeps asserting itself. President Obama is widely expected to announce Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair John Kerry (D-MA) to replace Hillary Clinton as the country's top diplomat, maybe as soon as today. But perhaps Obama should take into account the region most in flux in the world and nominate an American uniquely situated to deal with the perpetual Mideast crises: now is a good time to consider another possible candidate for the job, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN).

Though an unlikely pick and short on experience, Ellison’s background as the first Muslim member of Congress would offer a shake-up for the State Department as the Obama administration attempts to navigate an increasingly difficult set of challenges in the Middle East. The next Secretary of State will need to deal with the ongoing Syrian civil war, a transitioning Egypt beset by continuing political chaos and even violence, the ever-present Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and delicate diplomacy involving world powers and the U.N. against Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

On one of the biggest Middle East problems, Iran's nuclear program, Ellison has pursued a policy closely in line with Obama's: pressure against the regime but with robust diplomacy that could end the standoff without a military confrontation. In December 2011, Ellison stated that while he supported targeted sanctions against Iran, he was voting against the Iran Threat Reduction Act because it would restrict diplomacy with Iran. “Specifically, Section 601 [of the act] prohibits all communication between U.S. and Iranian officials unless the President notifies Congress fifteen days in advance. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen pointed out the problem with such a measure. ‘Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had links to the Soviet Union,’ he wrote. ‘We are not talking to Iran, so we don’t understand each other. If something happens, it’s virtually assured that we won’t get it right.’”

"But the person with the most influence on Netanyahu these days is Arthur Finkelstein, and Finkelstein says break right. So what if the world is furious about the decision to build thousands of apartments beyond the Green Line?"
--Yedioth political affairs commentator Sima Kadmon writes about what's behind Netanyahu's latest political moves.

• South Africa's ruling party endorses BDS campaign against Israel - The ANC declared it was 'unapologetic in its view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel.' (Haaretz+)
• Left-wing Israeli activist acquitted of crime after calling IDF soldiers 'war criminals' - Ezra Nawi wins appeal after being convicted of insulting an IDF officer who asked him to leave a closed military zone in Hebron in 2009. (Haaretz+)
• Lieberman probably won't be able to be appointed minister in next government - Police began collecting testimonies from members of appointment committtee to see if they were pressured to appoint the ambassador in Latvia. Indictment likely next week. (Maariv, p. 5/NRG Hebrew)
• Human Rights Watch: IDF violated laws of war by attacking journalists in Gaza - Two Palestinian cameramen were killed and at least 10 media personnel were wounded during Operation Pillar of Defense; IDF has no comment on rights group's claim. (Haaretz+)
• Israel calls on U.N. Security Council to condemn rearming of Hezbollah - Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a letter to the 15-nation council that the buildup was in clear violation of a U.N. arms embargo. (Haaretz)
• Dozens petition to relinquish 'Jewish' status - Following in author Yoram Kaniuk's footsteps, dozens including journalist Yaron London appeal to Interior Ministry to be registered as 'irreligious.' (Ynet)

For the full News from Israel.

Over 500 U.S. rabbis, cantors, rabbinical students and cantorial students have signed an open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning against his decision to advance settlement construction in the sensitive E1 area of the West Bank and build 3000 new housing units in East Jerusalem. The decision, which was announced the day after the U.N. voted to upgrade Palestine’s status, constitutes “the final blow to a peaceful solution,” the letter states. “If Israel builds in E1, it will cut East Jerusalem off from its West Bank surroundings and effectively bifurcate the West Bank. In doing so, E1 will literally represent an obstacle to a two-state solution.”

The appeal to Netanyahu, coordinated by Americans for Peace Now, J Street and Rabbis For Human Rights-North America, uses three rhetorical strategies to make its case. While they’re all sure to fall on deaf ears within the Netanyahu administration, they do stand to be heard by the Obama administration and the American Jewish community, suggesting that these two groups are the letter’s real implied audience.

First, the signatories argue that, contra popular belief, you don’t have to live in Israel to have an opinion about it. American Jews’ support for Israel has earned them the right to criticize it:

American Jewish Committee chief David Harris yesterday released an e-mail to that arbiter of fair reporting, the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin. In the e-mail, the AJC came out against Chuck Hagel's potential nomination as Defense Secretary, citing a years-long growing "concern" with Hagel's positions. The missive, which seems to be published in full, began with this trip down memory lane:

The first AJC encounter with Sen. Hagel I recall was when we sought his support, in 1999, for a Senate letter to then Russian President Boris Yeltsin urging action against rising anti-Semitism. We were unsuccessful. On June 20, 1999, we published the letter as a full-page ad in The New York Times with 99 Senate signatories. Only Sen. Hagel’s name was absent.

Harris then took the letter story other outlets. But what we don't get from Rubin or Harris is why exactly Hagel refused to affix his name to the letter. Who doesn't oppose Russian anti-Semitism? The answer, when it comes to the Senate in 1999, is "No one." Though Hagel didn't sign the letter, the reason had nothing to do with his views on anti-Semitism: a spokesperson for his office said at the time, in the words of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, that Hagel had a "policy not to send letters to foreign heads of state regarding their domestic policy." Deb Fiddelke, the spokesperson, explained that Hagel's absence had nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the letter: "Anti-Semitism and discrimination in any form should not be tolerated," she told JTA.

How do we know Hagel was really opposed to anti-Semitism? Well, his record of letters, actually. In 2002, three years after the AJC letter the Yeltsin, Hagel signed another letter urging action against anti-Semitism in Europe and the Arab media—only this letter was not to a foreign head of state, but rather to then-President George W. Bush. "Ninety-nine senators expressed concern Friday over anti-Semitism in Europe and in the Arab media and urged President Bush to address the issue," said an Associated Press report about the letter. The letter signed by Hagel (PDF), which was spearheaded by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), read: "We urge you  and your Administration to make every effort possible to raise, at the highest level, our concerns about anti-Semitic acts in Europe and anti-Semitic portrayals in the Arab media." That, apparently, is how Hagel thought it worked: you urge your own President, who is tasked by the constitution to make foreign policy, to raise it with, as Levin's press release had it, the "highest level of those governments."

The United Nations bureaucracy now recognizes—at least in name—two "states" between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. One, of course, is the long-since established State of Israel. The other, as of three days ago, is the State of Palestine. It happened quietly in an exchange of letters just within the past week. On Dec. 17, the U.N.'s head of official protocol wrote to the Palestinian delegation to Turtle Bay acceding to a request to, henceforth, be referred to as the representatives of the "State of Palestine." 

"It is gratifying, not only for me personally, but for the Palestinian people, to celebrate as a nation," the head of the Palestinian U.N. mission Riyad Mansour told me in an interview today. "It's not only a change of name, it's much more than that: now the United Nations is recognizing us as the State of Palestine." 

The protocol division's letter followed on the Nov. 29 vote to recognize Palestine as a "non-member observer state" at the U.N. Mansour said requests for changes in the official language were made following the vote. The reply came on Monday: "I refer to your letter of 12 December 2012 and have the honour to inform you that pursuant to your request, the designation of 'State of Palestine' shall be used by the Secretariat in all official United Nations documents," wrote the Chief of Protocol Yeocheol Yoon in a letter to Mansour obtained by Open Zion. The designation is on all the nameplates at the U.N. and will appear in activities related to the U.N., such as international conferences. That includes the Palestinian mission to Turtle Bay: Yoon's letter was addressed to "H.E. Mr. Riyad Mansour / Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations."

When it comes to winning elections, Team Obama does it better than anyone. When it comes to winning nomination fights, not so much.

Act One: Obama wins reelection, thus earning the presumptive right to name to high office pretty much whomever he wants.

Act Two: The media report that Susan Rice is his likely choice for Secretary of State, but Obama waits while the Republican flash mob on Benghazi gains strength. Then disaffected Africa wonks begin to gripe. Some off-message liberals chime in. And before you know it, our cool, it’s-just-business president has abandoned the woman everyone thought he really believed in.

Act Three: Late last week, the administration leaks its new team: John Kerry for State, Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. The early stories don’t even mention criticism of Hagel’s views on Israel or Iran. In the Senate, conservative Republicans and Jewish Democrats both responded with praise.

Act Four: The “pro-Israel” right begins to object. AIPAC is said to dislike the choice. Former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block calls Hagel “well outside the mainstream Democratic and Republican consensus” on Iran. (Block neglects to note that Hagel was also outside that consensus on Iraq, and prophetically so). In the Weekly Standard, an unnamed Senate aide bravely calls Hagel “an anti-Semite.

Act Five: The Obama administration, having just watched a potential nomination die because it allowed right-wing opposition to swell, watches right-wing opposition swell and…does nothing. American Jewish “leaders” (in quotes because the vast majority of American Jews have no idea who said “leaders” are) attend the White House Chanukah party and then boast on background about how they spent it lobbying against Hagel. But the White House declines to defend Hagel’s Middle East record, either publicly, or best as I can tell, privately. Five separate people, each plugged into beltway Jewish Democratic politics, each told me that as far as they knew, the White House has done nothing to marshal a response to the Hagel attacks. “It’s a very closed circle,” notes one. “They don’t reach out.” A second is blunter. “He’s out there his own. It’s ugly.”

"I represent a generation. Disqualifying me is disqualifying an entire generation of Palestinians."
--Arab-Israeli MK Hanin Zoabi responds after being disqualified to run in the upcoming Israeli elections.

• IDF to reduce time Palestinian minors may be held without seeing a judge - The state informed the High Court of Justice of the reduction this week, however the initial incarceration period for Palestinians remains at least twice as long as for Israeli youths. (Haaretz+)
  
• Uniformed rightists urge IDF disobedience - New videos by right-wing group call on soldiers, teens to actively hinder any military operation involving settlement eviction. (Ynet)
  
• Likud touts (far-right-wing) Feiglin to lure in religious voters - New campaign featuring far-Right candidate is meant to appeal to national-religious sector. (Ynet and Israel Hayom)
  
• Comptroller to probe Israel gun laws - Special inquiry to look into gun control regulations following recent incidents involving security guards who murdered their wives, as well as Newtown massacre. (Ynet)
  
• Israeli court indicts alleged Tel Aviv bus bomber - Security forces arrested suspects shortly after No. 142 bus was attacked during Operation Pillar of Defense in November; suspect is Palestinian residing in Israel as part of family reunification plan. (Haaretz+ and Ynet)t)
  
• Israel approves Qatar emir's visit to West Bank, in nod to Abbas - Israel approved the visit under assumption that the emir will offer financial aid to the struggling Palestinian Authority, and give Palestinian Authority diplomatic strengthening over Hamas rival. (Haaretz+)
  
• West Bank Palestinians strike in protest of Israeli sanctions - Following Palestinian success at the U.N. General Assembly, government employees in the West Bank strike in protest of Israeli sanctions withholding some $100 million in monthly customs and delay in payment of wages. (Agencies, Haaretz)
  

For the full News from Israel.

When past Israeli Chief of Staff and cabinet minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak’s wife and five children say their final goodbyes at his funeral on Thursday, they might take a bit of symbolic comfort from seeing the coffin carried by eight IDF major-generals. It will be an official military funeral for a man who helped lead their country through war and towards peace.

When I interviewed Lipkin-Shahak in Jerusalem in March 2000, the second Intifada was not yet in view and the peace process was being kept afloat by the elbow grease of rounds of negotiations against the backdrop of decades of Arab-Israeli wars.

Though he had fought as a company commander in the 1967 War and as a deputy brigade commander in the 1973 War, that afternoon we spoke mostly about the 1982 Lebanon War. It was a war that, in Lipkin-Shahak’s words, “led to a national debate; it was a war of yesh breira.” Unlike the traditional wars of ayn breyra (“no choice”) that Israel prided itself on fighting, the Lebanon War was widely seen as having been chosen by the politicians.

Bret Stephens is upset that, in the course of claiming that he’s quicker to accuse public figures of anti-Semitism than of other forms of bigotry, I wrote that “When it comes to identifying prejudice against African Americans, Hispanics, Arabs, Muslims and gays, Bret Stephens is remarkably restrained.” He responds with examples of himself supporting the right of gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, supporting gay marriage, opposing “demonizing Latin American immigrants” and claiming that many Muslims yearn for freedom.

Stephens deserves credit for those positions, and it’s gratifying to see that support for gay marriage and immigrant rights is growing among conservative pundits. But by taking my quote out of context, Stephens suggests that the columns he cites contradict my argument when they actually don’t.

What Stephens doesn’t quote are the sentences immediately after the one he cites. Let me do it for him:

If, during the 2012 campaign, the Wall Street Journal columnist detected any bigotry in Donald Trump’s obsession with Barack Obama’s birthplace or Newt Gingrich’s declaration that Obama is the “food stamp president,” or Herman Cain’s vow not to appoint a Muslim to his cabinet, he didn’t share it with his readers. When Mitt Romney blamed Palestinian “culture” for the discrepancy between Palestinian and Jewish living standards in the West Bank, Stephens ridiculed claims that Romney’s comments were racist and instead enthused that “I’m beginning to warm to Mitt.”

These sentences define what I meant by “remarkably restrained.” My point in that paragraph, and in my entire piece, is that while Stephens called Hagel an anti-Semite on the flimsiest of grounds, he gave leading Republicans a pass for anti-Muslim and anti-black comments that were far more egregious. And when Mitt Romney basically accused Palestinians of having an inferior culture, Stephens applauded. Somehow I doubt he would have responded the same way had Romney made similar comments about the culture of Jews.

I don’t think Bret Stephens supports bigotry. I do think that, like many conservatives, he is far more willing to accuse American politicians—at least those he considers too dovish on Israel—of anti-Semitism than of other forms of prejudice. That’s my point, in this season or any other.

Hi Peter,

I noticed this morning that you wrote something about my latest column on your Daily Beast blog. There’s no point in getting into an argument over the substance of my column or your rebuttal to it. But I am nonetheless struck by the remarkably gratuitous and demonstrably false claim you make in your first sentence, when you write: “When it comes to identifying prejudice against African Americans, Hispanics, Arabs, Muslims and gays, Bret Stephens is remarkably restrained.”

Let’s see. Here’s E.J. Dionne writing about a column I wrote some time ago on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

But there are at least some profiles in courage on this issue, and I want to salute Bret Stephens, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, for trying to persuade Republicans to join the equal rights cause. He made a strong political case to the GOP -- but also the central substantive case:

… it's worth noting that there are an estimated 48,000 homosexuals on active duty or [in] the reserves, many of them in critical occupations, many with distinguished service records. If they pose any risk at all to America's security, it is, paradoxically, because DADT institutionalizes dishonesty, puts them at risk of blackmail, and forces fellow warfighters who may know about their orientation to make an invidious choice between comradeship and the law. That's no way to run a military.

The Washington Post today decried Chuck Hagel as a possible choice to lead the Defense Department, with the editorial board remarking that, "Mr. Hagel’s stated positions on critical issues, ranging from defense spending to Iran, fall well to the left of those pursued by Mr. Obama during his first term—and place him near the fringe of the Senate that would be asked to confirm him." That Hagel would be near the fringe of the Senate because of his views on Iran speaks to how close the Senate is to the fringes of reality: the Senate's efforts to limit the President's diplomacy and impose devastating sanctions haven't worked to "prevent" Iran from advancing its nuclear program either. In 2007, Hagel asked, "What confidence should we have in a strategy that, to date, has nothing to show for it? That has achieved no tangible changes to Iran's nuclear program and actually has seen the Middle East become more dangerous, and Iran more defiant?" Five years later, the Post editors—along with perhaps the Obama administration and certainly the Congress—would do well to ask themselves these questions.

There's a lot to debate with regard to Hagel's long record of views on Iran, and one might begin with his sober accounting of what the regime there is like: "[T]hey support terrorists, they support Hezbollah," he told the Israel Policy Forum in 2008. "They’ve got their tentacles wrapped around every problem in the Middle East. They’re anti-Israel, anti-United States. Those are realities. Those are facts." In the speech, he also called for opening a diplomatic interests section in Tehran and resuming commercial flights to the country. Try though the critics may, these can hardly be classified as "fringe" views, or unreasonable ones, and are certainly open to discussion.

What's not up for debate is that the overall Senate tack—to impose yet more sanctions, disallow any future Iranian enrichment at any level, and oppose any confidence-building measures that could relieve pressure, as stated in a recent AIPAC-backed Senate letter—hasn't stopped Iran from continuing to enrich apace (though hedging in various ways). The Congress and an assortment of neoconservatives may consider skepticism about the efficacy of military action a sin, but their view is again divorced from reality: the enthusiasm for keeping the military option on the table hasn't curtailed Iran either. Rather, experts have assessed that attacking would only delay Iran and harden its resolve to build weapons—not to mention risking a years-long "all-out regional war." Hagel's positions may put him on the fringes of the Senate, but he's firmly in the mainstream of expert opinion, from Israel to the Pentagon. The Post wrote that it shares Hagel's skepticism about attacks, but adds that "during the next year or two, Mr. Obama may be forced to contemplate military action" and needs a Defense chief who will support him. Leave aside the notion that Hagel—an enlisted Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts—might be insubordinate, the Post is telling us they know a strike might not work, but the nation should nonetheless follow Obama into this potential folly. Hagel's May utterance that "we've got to understand great-power limitations" might be apt.

The public opposition to the possible nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense has been dominated by Jewish individuals and groups already partisan when it comes to Barack Obama or long hostile to his Israel policy. This, in turn, has raised a number of questions over what exactly is meant by “pro-Israel Jewish leadership.”

The Daily Beast, BuzzFeed, The New York Times, and the Forward have written on the debate, but they’ve all said the same thing: that the pro-Israel Jewish community opposes Hagel. Yet they all relied on the same people and quotes, primarily from the right or far-right end of the political spectrum. It’s not unexpected that these individuals and groups would oppose Obama’s choices. But what makes this an issue of concern and puzzlement is that in the popular mind these groups have become representative of the pro-Israel Jewish community—when in reality it’s not at all clear this is the case.

The veneer of representation is maintained by referencing (the same) Democrats concerned about Hagel, particularly former Democratic operative Josh Block and a quote from Ira Forman, former executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council; by noting Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman’s email to conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin implying Hagel traffics in anti-Semitic tropes; and by suggesting—given its past positions—that AIPAC would be opposed to Hagel’s ideas.